Community leaders and volunteers will join Black Press and the Columbia Basin Alliance for Literacy on Oct. 9 to raise awareness about the importance of literacy and to celebrate the power literacy has in the West Boundary.
The 4th Annual Reach a Reader campaign will raise funds for West Boundary’s community-based literacy programs.
Why? Literacy is important to all British Columbians! It impacts every aspect of our lives: healthcare, crime rates, employment and economic status. Despite its essential role in life, at least 40 per cent of B.C. adults have difficulty reading a newspaper, filling out a work application, reading a map, or understanding a lease—and this percentage is increasing.
“The Reach a Reader campaign reminds people that literacy skills are important if we are to succeed in today’s world,” says Sheila Dobie, Boundary community literacy coordinator. “When we hear the word literacy many of us think ‘you can read or you can’t read.’ Of course, literacy is about reading and writing, but it is also about the ability to express our ideas, think critically, and use technology. Literacy is wide and all-encompassing. Literacy is having the skills you need, to do what you want to do in your life.”
In the West Boundary, funds raised will help support a Mother Goose family literacy program. This program provides important rhyme and activity based language development with both the child and parent participating together. Participants learn activities they can continue in the home and that can become part of the culture of learning within the family.
You can support the Reach a Reader campaign by making a donation in exchange for a special edition of the Boundary Creek Times on Oct. 9. Volunteers will be hitting the streets with papers in hand at the new Boundary Creek Times office across from the Credit Union in Greenwood between 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. You may also donate online at cbal.org.
To learn more about community-based literacy programs in the West Boundary, contact Dobie at sdobie@cbal.org.